Friday, 18 July 2014

Hidden amongst the many bushes and shrubs in my front garden is a Dog Rose.

I didn't even know it was there because the rooms where I spend most of the daylight hours look out on my little back garden, so I tend to be largely unaware of what goes on at the front. And that's how I came to be taken by surprise when I realised that our record-breaking wet winter, followed by a warm April, had made everything grow like crazy, including a rampant Dog Rose, at the front!

It was hanging right over the pavement and into the road, a busy road with enough big lorries to make the overhanging greenery a potential danger to drivers!

So out came my tallest pair of steps, and, armed with secateurs, I was able to cut back the errant Dog Rose, just about succeeding in not dropping the cuttings (or myself!) onto the passing traffic.Job done! But I really don't like throwing healthy blooms into the garden waste bag; so I cut off the flowers and filled all my smallest posy vases with them.

At that point, I realised that I had never really looked at Wild Roses, even though they were the basis of those most English of symbols, the Red and White roses of the Mediaeval Houses of Lancaster and York and, of course, the Tudor Rose! (You can read about 'The Wars of the Roses', and see portraits of the colourful characters involved HERE!)

The Red Rose of the House of Lancaster

The White Rose of the House of York

The Tudor rose, bringing the two warring Houses together

What I noticed when I looked more carefully, was that, compared to cultivated roses, the Dog Rose has a very simple petal arrangement.And that's something that influences me strongly when I'm thinking of making a hand-painted paper collage! The painted tissue paper I use is still slightly transparent after painting so building layer on layer of petals for a more complicated flower could end up as a rather muddy-coloured papier mache! No such problem with the Dog Rose and once I had decided to try it as my 'model' for a new pattern, everything else on my To-Do list was swept aside in favour of what turned into my 'Rosy Posy' pattern collection!

I've made it with various background colours - Sky Blue, Moody Blue and Taupe, as well as the original, White -

And I teamed it with coordinating Polka Dots, Stripes and Check patterns to make a faux patchwork -